Cell phones used to track traffic

scm alerted us to a story in the San Jose Mercury News about some new technology which uses the reflected signals from cell phones to map traffic patterns. But it also seems to be able to track individual users as well by mapping those reflections to their physical location. Wonder which use will be the most "valuable"?

Comments

This is a really stupid idea

[Animats]

And the Mercury News should have known better. For starters, most major California cities already have real-time freeway traffic monitoring. In LA, the freeway speed map is on a cable channel. There are detector loops in the pavement every half mile on major freeways. It's the same technology used at traffic lights. The data collected is basically vehicle speed and vehicle length (car vs. truck), and from this data traffic density and spacing can be extracted. Accidents are immediately visible as a big change in speed from one section to the next. This is a huge help; detecting an accident immediately and getting a tow truck there fast is worth an extra lane, and costs much less. The busier freeways also have TV cameras.

Just to give a sense of how much information is already available online, here's a current incident report from the California Highway Patrol:

(1179) Traffic Collision - Ambulance Responding
Incident: 3053 Location: EB I580 JWO GRAND AV Map Page: 649 3J Info as of: 01/22/00 11:05 PM
ADDITIONAL DETAILS

11:03 pm - 1039 PITOS W/FLTBD ON EXP
11:02 pm - #5 BLOCKED / ROLL 1185 ON EXP
11:00 pm - PER RP - MIN INJ -- ROLLING 1141
10:59 pm - RP ADVS VEH PARTIALLY BLKG RT LN
10:57 pm - 2 ADDTL VEHS PULLED OVER AS WELL
10:57 pm - ON RHS
10:57 pm - NEG VEHS BLOCKING

RESPONDING OFFICERS STATUS
10:59 pm - CHP Unit Enroute
11:00 pm - CHP Unit Enroute
11:01 pm - CHP Unit On Scene

So getting simple traffic data from cell phones is totally unnecessary and inferior to the systems in place.

Re:Not really

[wowbagger]

If I had moderator points, I'd just moderate up the other replies. Since I don't...

First, the article described 2 systems: One used GPS (and that is the section you quote), and the other used passive reception of the signal. There is no way to turn off the passive system without turning off the phone (not such a bad idea: drive now, talk later). Now, as part of a standard AMPS cell call, the mobile sends out its MIN (mobile identification number). That's the phone number to you and me. It is the actual telephone #, not just a serial #. So, with a commonly available reverse phone book (i.e. a phone book sorted on numbers, not names) you can look up the number and get a name. You can also look up the person you want to track's name, get the phone number (with a regular phone book), and track that person as long as they talk.

What people find so scary about this sort of thing is the fact that it can be abused. And if history is any guide, what can be abused shall be abused. Here in the States we have had various forms of electronic monitoring added to our computer networks, telephone switches, etc. to make it easier (read: trivial) for the various agencies of the various government levels to spy on citizens. If you do not think that the FBI will go to the makers of the passive system and say "You will put in code to allow us to track individual callers.", then you do not know our law enforcement agencies very well.